The irony of having to carry around a laptop charging brick that is heavier than the computer itself may be no more if a Kickstarter campaign by FINsix pans out.
The company is looking for pledges to help get its tiny, 65-watt laptop charger off the ground. The device was first shown in January at International CES, but the Kickstarter campaign officially launched today.
The company hopes to raise $200,000 during its 30-day campaign and after just 24 hours on Kickstarter it is almost halfway to its goal. People pledging $79 will receive an early-bird edition of the charger, which will save them about $40 from the expected retail price. The chargers will be available in blue, magenta, silver, gunmetal and orange. These are not MacBook compatible.
Called the Dart, the charger is specifically designed to go along with the growing number of thin and light laptops and Chromebooks now on the market. Apple users can pledge $148 or more to get the first Dart's compatible with a MacBook.
The charger is 2.5-square inches, about the size of two USB flash drives. Put another way, it is four-times smaller and, at 60 grams, six times lighter than an average laptop charger. It can charge any PC and can plug into any power outlet in the world. However, it will not work with all Mac products. The device has two USB ports, allowing for multiple devices to be charged at one time. It comes with a 6-foot cable.
The company uses a patented technology called very high frequency power conversion to do the same job normally done by a larger AC/DC converter.
"It is well-known in power electronics that increasing switching frequency is key to reducing size, weight, and cost. However, it is critical (and very hard) to switch faster while maintaining high efficiency. This is because modern power converters repeatedly deliver small packets of energy to the electronic device in cycles called switching cycles. Switching isn't a perfect process, and during every cycle some energy is wasted in the form of heat. At FINsix, our technology allows us to waste far less energy with each cycle. Thus, we can cycle up to 1000x faster without wasting any more energy than a conventional power converter. Cycling faster means we can transfer a smaller packet of energy to each cycle -- and make the power converter a lot smaller," the company said.
The company intends to begin shipping the first units to its VIP Kickstarter backers in October, with a general roll out in early 2015.
